I'm not sure why you are so definite in that. I am probably out to lunch in whatever numbers I mention, but ... If you drop Starks and McGinest, it seems like you are somwhere in the neighborhood of 84M. I think ?? that they get to spread some of Brady's numbers which will drop the 84M by some millions. But on top of that they have to add rookie salary and bonus cap hits. And they have to re-sign or replace the following free agents with respectable replacements:
Ashworth, Tom*
Brown, Troy*
Chatham, Matt
Davis, Andre'
Dwight, Tim
Evans, Heath
Fauria, Christian*
Flutie, Doug
Givens, David*
Hawkins, Artrell
Neal, Stephen*
Poteat, Hank
Scott, Chad
Stone, Michael
Tucker, Ross
Vinatieri, Adam*

As I say, I may not have a clue as to the real numbers. But if what I have layed out is anywhere close to what they face, I think they have some serious work to do to stay within a salary cap (even at 92M or whatever it turns out to be)

I'd be interested if there is better information that says there is some more room for them to work with.

As usual, fantastic breakdown and possible scenarios. We are all mighty fortunate to be able to look over your shoulder at such comprehensive info and scenarios.

I hope I am not too presumptuous to think that, bottom line, their cap is certainly manageable with a fair amount of work and rework but there is not a lot of room for some 'pricey' free agent. If the cap ends up above $100M, then maybe they would be able to afford one - or they could even then opt to not mortgage future years quite so much and absorb more bonuses as currently structured.

My impression is that Willie McGinest is the last of the pre-BB/SP era players whom they inherited with sizable contract commitments (altho they redid Willie's contract in 2001 per your info)

Really tiny nitpicky thing - you use "NTLBE" when it might be "NLTBE".